Devastating Dark Side of Mobile Technology

According to psychologists & counselors, a trend amongst more and more young people has become an addiction, the internet and mobile electronic device usage. Psychotherapist Julie Lynn Evans saw her workload drastically increase all of a sudden. The lives of new young patients had suddenly gotten much more dangerous, immediate and more painful.

Emergency admissions to child psychiatric wards doubled in four years and young adults hospitalized for self-harm up 70 percent. Evans said, “Something is clearly happening because I am seeing the evidence in the numbers of depressive, anorexic, cutting children who come to see me. And it always has something to do with the computer, the internet and the smartphone.”

A 12 year-old girl was detained in Colorado on two counts of attempted first-degree murder for twice attempting to poison her motherafter she took away the girl’s iPhone.

The growing addiction of young people to electronics has been worrying child development specialists for years. Mounting evidence that heavy use of mobile devices for toddlers interferes with play and cognitive development. A number of young children cannot use basic toys such as building blocks because they have not developed the necessary motor skills.

Children are reportedly having trouble with pen-and-paper exams, unable to properly hold a writing instrument and “because their memory had been eroded by overexposure to screen-based technology.” iPads appear to be the most seductive, with its bright colors and infinite variety of games & pictures.

There are also declines in the quality of handwriting & spelling as “text chat” is on the rise. Studies suggest handwriting is “important to brain development and cognition –helping kids hone motor skills,” notes ‘The Week’ magazine. “Yet the time devoted to teaching penmanship in most grade schools has shrunk to just one hour a week.”